Instantaneous symbol lookup

ABSTRACT

A computer program assists in the completion of text input provided by a user. For example, the computer program may maintain a list of n-tuples (where n&gt;1), each of which includes n text strings. For example, each n-tuple may include a stock ticker symbol and the name of a company having that stock ticker symbol. As the user types each character, the program determines whether the text typed by the user so far matches any of the text strings in the n-tuples. The program provides the user with an indication of whether any matches have been found, such as by displaying a list of the n-tuples having text matching the text typed by the user so far. The program then allows the user to select one of the matching n-tuples. The program uses text (such as a stock ticker symbol) from the user&#39;s selection to complete the text input.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/384,957 filed Mar. 20, 2006, which is incorporated herein by reference. The present application is also related to U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/784,140 filed Mar. 20, 2006, which is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to computer-implemented techniques for assisting in the completion of text inputted by a user and, more particularly, to identifying candidate text to input into a text field based on text typed by a user into the text field.

2. Related Art

Computer software has long been used to reduce the effort that computer users need to expend to provide textual input. For example, conventional word processing software typically supports macros, which may be pre-defined by the software vendor and/or defined by the user, for replacing-a short text string typed by the user with a longer text string, thereby eliminating the need for the user to manually type the longer text string. For example, consider a macro which defines the text “sincerely yours” as a replacement for the text “sy”. When the user types “sy”, the word processor may automatically replace “sy” with “Sincerely yours”.

The word processor may maintain multiple macros, each of which defines a mapping between source text (the text typed by the user) and replacement text. As the user types, the word processor determines whether the text most recently typed by the user matches the source text of any existing macro. If such a match is found, the word processor replaces the typed source text with the corresponding replacement text defined by the macro. This feature is implemented, for example, in the widely used Microsoft Word word processor as part of the “AutoCorrect” feature.

Another technique that some computer software uses to reduce the number of keystrokes required to be typed by the user is the following. As the user types, the software attempts to match the most-recently typed text against text previously typed by the user in the same context. For example, in some web browsers, as the user types the web address (URL) of a web site in the address bar, the web browser attempts to match the address being typed by the user with addresses previously typed by the user. As the user types, the web browser displays a list of matches.

For example, assume that the user has previously typed “www.google.com”, “www.books.com”, “www.booksamillion.com”, and “www.booksense.com” into the address bar. If the user next begins typing “www” into the address bar, the web browser may display all four previously-typed addresses below the address bar; because “www” matches the beginning of all such addresses.

If the user continues to type “www.books”, the web browser will eliminate “www.google.com” from the list of possible matches because it no longer matches the text being typed by the user. The list will still, however, display “www.books.com”, “www.booksamillion.com”, and “www.booksense.com” in the list, because all three of these previously-typed addresses match the text being typed by the user. As the user continues to type, any address having leading text that does not match the typed text will be eliminated from the list of potential matches.

At any point, the user may select one of the addresses in the list of possible matches (such as by using a mouse to click on the address or by using the arrow and ENTER keys on the keyboard), thereby causing the selected address to be entered into the address bar, and thereby eliminating the need for the user to manually type the entire address. This can save the user significant time and effort, particularly when the address selected is very long. This feature has been used more generally in various other kinds of software requiring the user to type text into the same form fields on multiple occasions.

Users stand to benefit from additional features which reduce the number of keystrokes required to be made by the user.

SUMMARY

A computer program assists in the completion of text input provided by a user. For example, the computer program may maintain a list of n-tuples (where n>1), each of which includes n text strings. For example, each n-tuple may include a stock ticker symbol and the name of a company having that stock ticker symbol. As the user types each character, the program determines whether the text typed by the user so far matches any of the text strings in the n-tuples. The program provides the user with an indication of whether any matches have been found, such as by displaying a list of the n-tuples having text matching the text typed by the user so far. The program then allows the user to select one of the matching n-tuples. The program uses text (such as a stock ticker symbol) from the user's selection to complete the text input.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIGS. 1A-1C are illustrations of a graphical user interface text input control for use in assisting in the completion of text input by a user according to embodiments of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Referring to FIG. 1A, an illustration is shown of a graphical user interface text input control 100 for use in assisting in the completion of text input by a user according to one embodiment of the present invention. The control 100 includes a text input field 102 into which the user may type text.

In the particular embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1A, the text input field 102 is used for entering either the name of a company or the stock ticker symbol of the company. The text input field 102 may, for example, be implemented in a financial message board aggregation web site of the kind described in the above-referenced patent application entitled “Message Aggregator.” The text input field 102, however, may be used for entering text of any kind, and is not limited to use in any particular kind of computer program (such as a web browser).

For purposes of the following discussion, however, assume that the text input field 102 is used to enter either the name of a company or the stock ticker symbol of the company. The program that provides the text input field 102 may maintain a list of ticker-name tuples. For example, one tuple may include the stock ticker symbol “AAP” and the name of the company having that stock ticker symbol, namely “Advance Auto Parts Inc.” Another tuple may, for example, include the stock ticker symbol “AAPH” and the name of the company having that stock ticker symbol, namely “American Petro-Hunter Inc.” Yet another tuple may, for example, include the stock ticker symbol “AAPL” and the name of the company having that stock ticker symbol, namely “Apple Computer Inc.”

In the particular example illustrated in FIG. 1A, the user has begun to type the text “aap”. As the user types, the program that provides the text input field 102 may attempt to match the text that the user has typed so far against any of the text in the tuples maintained by the program. For example, the program may attempt to match the text typed by the user so far against both the stored list of stock ticker symbols and the list of corresponding company names.

If the program determines that the text typed by the user so far matches any of the text in a particular tuple, the program may indicate such a match to the user. For example, if the program determines that the text typed by the user so far matches either the stock ticker symbol or the company name of a particular tuple, the program may indicate to the user that a match has been found. If matches are found with text in multiple tuples, the program may indicate to the user that multiple matches have been found.

In the particular embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1A, any matches are indicated to the user by displaying a list of matching tuples, consisting of the stock ticker name followed by the company name (in parenthesis) of each matching tuple. For example, in FIG. 1A, the text typed so far by the user (“aap”) matches three stock ticker symbols (“AAP”, “AAPH”, and “AAPL”). The program therefore displays the text 108 a-c of the three matching tuples in the list 106 a. It should be appreciated that the contents of the list may change as the user continues to type additional characters in the text input field 102 or as the user deletes previously-typed characters in the text input field 102.

Furthermore, the subset of each text item in the list that matches the input text may be visually emphasized. For example, in FIG. 1A, the text “AAP” may be highlighted (such as by color coding) in each of the matching text strings 108 a, 108 b, and 108 c. Highlighting the matching text in this way enables the user to quickly recognize the basis of each match, thereby enabling the user to quickly determine whether any of the displayed text strings 108 a-c corresponds to the company for which the user was searching.

In the particular example illustrated in FIG. 1A, the text 104 a typed by the user in the text input field 102 only matches stock ticker symbols in the set of stored tuples. Referring to FIG. 1B, an example is illustrated in which the text 104 b (“appl”) typed by the user matches company names (e.g., “Apple Computer Inc.”, “Applied Biosystems Group”, and “Applied Digital Solutions”) instead of stock ticker symbols. The list 106 b displayed in FIG. 1B, therefore, includes text 110 a-j corresponding to tuples having company names that match the typed text 104 b. Although the list 106 b is sorted by stock ticker symbol, the list 106 b may be organized in any manner. For example, the list 106 b may be sorted by company name. Note that the list 106 b displayed in FIG. 1B may be generated dynamically while the user types the text 104 b in the same manner as described above with respect to the list 106 a of FIG. 1A, namely by attempting to match the text 104 b against both stock ticker symbols and company names.

Referring to FIG. 1C, an example is illustrated in which the text 104 c (“del”) typed by the user matches both ticker symbols (i.e., “DEL”, “DELL”, and “DELT”) and company names (i.e., “Delcath Systems Inc.”, “Delta Capital Technologies Inc.”, “deltathree Inc.”, “Delhaize Group (ADR)”, “Delta Financial Corp.”, and “Delphi Financial Group Inc.”). The list 106 c displayed in FIG. 1C, therefore, includes both text 112 a-c corresponding to tuples having ticker symbols that match the typed text 104 c and text 112 d-j having company names that match the typed text 104 c. Although the list 106 c includes two sections—one for matching ticker symbols and one for matching company names—the list may be organized in any manner. For example, the list 106 c may be a single list sorted by company name or ticker symbol.

Once a list of matching tuples has been displayed (such as any of the lists 106 a-c illustrated in FIGS. 1A-1C), the program may allow the user to select a tuple from the list to complete the text being typed in the text input field 102. For example, if the user clicks on an item in the list, the program may fill in the text field 102 with the stock ticker symbol of the tuple selected by the user. Note, however, that when the user selects a tuple from the list, the program may fill in the text field 102 with a stock ticker symbol even though the user had begun to type a company name, or vice versa. The user may also select more than one of the output strings by using the shift or control key while selecting a subset of the desired output strings.

The techniques disclosed herein may be used to reduce the number of keystrokes required to be input by the user. This may save the user effort and enable the user to use the corresponding computer program more quickly. For example, in comparison, conventional financial portal web sites typically provide a “symbol lookup” feature that allows a user to find the stock ticker symbol for a company by typing the company's name, and then clicking on a “find” button. Examples of existing financial portal web sites, some of which provide some form of “symbol lookup” feature, but which do not include the kind of lookup features disclosed herein, include: http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/common/find.asp?NextPage=/detail/stock quote, http://finance.yahoo.com/lookup, http://money.cnn.com/quote/lookup/index.html, http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/lookup.asp, http://clearstation.etrade.com/cgi-bin/symbol search, http://www.marketcenter.com/std/search.action, http://www.marketcenter.com/std/toolbox.jsp, http://www.quote.com/qc/lookup/symbol search.aspx, http://www.wallstreettape.com/charts/custom/symbol-lookup.asp, http://online.wsj.com/public/us, http://online.barrons.com/public/main, http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/symbollookup/symbollookup.asp, http://www.esignalcentral.com/support/symbol/default.asp, http://www.hoovers.com/free/, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/tkrlookup, http://www2.barchart.com/lookup.asp, http://stockcharts.com/index.html, http://tools.thestreet.com/tsc/quotes.html?pg=qcn&, http://www.earningswhispers.com/tickerlookup.asp, http://www.whispernumber.com/index.jsp, http://www.google.com, http://quote.morningstar.com/TickerLookup.html, http://www.fool.com, http://www.siliconinvestor.com, http://www.investorshub.com, http://www.ragingbull.com, http://www.boardcentral.com, http://www.briefing.com/, http://www.newyorktimes.com, http://www.washingtonpost.com, http://www.boston.com, http://www.ft.com, http://news.bbc.co.uk/, http://www.inc.com, http://www.forbes.com, http://www.fortune.com, http://research.businessweek.com/ticker/create_ticker.asp, http://www.etrade.com, http://www.ameritrade.com, http://www.schwab.com, http://www.scottrade.com, http://www.sharebuilder.com, and http://www.vanguard.com, http://seekingalpha.com/, http://portfolios.abcnews.go.com/guotes/getQuote, http://www.investorvillage.com/home.asp, http://www.tickertech.com/cgi/?a=lookup, http://www.investors.com/symbol.asp, http://www.cboe.com/DelayedQuote/Symbol.aspx, http://personal.fidelity.com/research/stocks/content/stocksind ex.shtml?bar=c, http://www.quicken.com/investments/tsl/, http://www.globeinvestor.com/static/hubs/lookup.html, http://www.usatoday.com/money/search-tips.htm, http://stockhouse.com/, http://www.thelion.com/, http://www.island.com/, http://www.zacks.com/, http://www.troweprice.com/common/indexHtml3/0,0,htmlid=38,00.h tml, http://www.amex.com/?href=/quickquote/SymbolLookup.jsp, http://www.nasdag.com, http://www.nyse.com/, http://www.londonstockexchange.com/en-gb/, http://www.euronext.com, http://www.tsx.com/, http://www.asx.com.au/, http://www.advfn.com, http://www.mldirect.ml.com, http://www.foxnews.com/business/index.html, http://www.quickandreilly.com/, http://www.economist.com/index.html, http://www.kiplinger.com/, http://www.pennystock.com/, http://www.wallstreetselect.com/, http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml, http://www.edgar-online.com/, http://freeedgar.com/, http://www.thedeal.com, http://www.investools.com, http://www.activetradermag.com/, http://www.traders.com/, and http://www.ipohome.com.

The techniques disclosed herein may also provide the user with a beneficial degree of flexibility. For example, the techniques disclosed herein provide the user with the flexibility to type either a stock ticker symbol or a company name, depending on the user's preference, or depending on which of the two the user remembers most easily. The user, therefore, is not limited to a particular mode of input dictated by the program. This may make the program easily usable by different classes of users, such as both those users who are sophisticated stock traders (and therefore likely to remember stock ticker symbols) and less sophisticated users (who are likely to remember company names rather than symbols). More generally, the techniques disclosed herein reduce the need for the user to rely on his memory to provide necessary textual input.

It is to be understood that although the invention has been described above in terms of particular embodiments, the foregoing embodiments are provided as illustrative only, and do not limit or define the scope of the invention. Various other embodiments, including but not limited to the following, are also within the scope of the claims. For example, elements and components described herein may be further divided into additional components or joined together to form fewer components for performing the same functions.

Although certain examples described herein use stock ticker symbol and company name as the categories of text strings stored in n-tuples, the techniques disclosed herein may be applied to text strings representing any categories of content. For example, company sector (or other means of categorizing a company) is another example of a category of content to which the techniques disclosed herein may be applied.

Although particular examples disclosed herein involve the use of pairs of text strings, such pairs are merely special cases of n-tuples, in which n=2. The techniques disclosed herein may be applied more generally, to n-tuples where n>1. Furthermore, the text in the tuples may be of any kind and have any relationship to each other. For example, although stock ticker symbols typically have some textual similarity to the corresponding company names, this is not required. For example, an n-tuple may include a person's name and the person's street address, in which case there may be no textual similarity between the various text strings in the n-tuple.

In certain examples disclosed herein, the text typed by the user is matched against the beginning (leading characters) of text in the n-tuples. This is not, however, a requirement of the present invention. Rather, matching may be performed by comparing any subset of the text typed by the user against any subset of the n-tuple text. Furthermore, matching need not be performed against all elements in an n-tuple, or in the same manner against all elements in an n-tuple. For example, if n=3, matching may be performed against two rather than three of the text strings in the n-tuple.

Although certain examples disclosed herein provide the user with an indication of matches by displaying a list of all text in matching n-tuples, this is not a requirement of the present invention. Rather, matches may be displayed in a form other than a list. Furthermore, displayed matches need not display all of the text in matching tuples. The user may be allowed to select a matching tuple using any kind of input mechanism.

Any kind of computer program may implement the techniques disclosed herein. For example, the techniques disclosed herein may be implemented in a web site displayed by a web browser.

Although the concept of an n-tuple is used herein, the techniques disclosed herein may be implemented without storing data in structures organized as n-tuples. Rather, the techniques disclosed herein may be implemented using any kind of data structure, such as linked lists. The data against which the user input is matched may be pre-stored, downloaded over a network connection, generated on-the-fly, or produced, stored, and processed in any suitable manner.

The techniques described above may be implemented, for example, in hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. The techniques described above may be implemented in one or more computer programs executing on a programmable computer including a processor, a storage medium readable by the processor (including, for example, volatile and non-volatile memory and/or storage elements), at least one input device, and at least one output device. Program code may be applied to input entered using the input device to perform the functions described and to generate output. The output may be provided to one or more output devices.

Each computer program within the scope of the claims below may be implemented in any programming language, such as assembly language, machine language, a high-level procedural programming language, or an object-oriented programming language. The programming language may, for example, be a compiled or interpreted programming language.

Each such computer program may be implemented in a computer program product tangibly embodied in a machine-readable storage device for execution by a computer processor. Method steps of the invention may be performed by a computer processor executing a program tangibly embodied on a computer-readable medium to perform functions of the invention by operating on input and generating output. Suitable processors include, by way of example, both general and special purpose microprocessors. Generally, the processor receives instructions and data from a read-only memory and/or a random access memory. Storage devices suitable for tangibly embodying computer program instructions include, for example, all forms of non-volatile memory, such as semiconductor memory devices, including EPROM, EEPROM, and flash memory devices; magnetic disks such as internal hard disks and removable disks; magneto-optical disks; and CD-ROMs. Any of the foregoing may be supplemented by, or incorporated in, specially-designed ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits) or FPGAs (Field-Programmable Gate Arrays). A computer can generally also receive programs and data from a storage medium such as an internal disk (not shown) or a removable disk. These elements will also be found in a conventional desktop or workstation computer as well as other computers suitable for executing computer programs implementing the methods described herein, which may be used in conjunction with any digital print engine or marking engine, display monitor, or other raster output device capable of producing color or gray scale pixels on paper, film, display screen, or other output medium. 

1. In a computer system including a plurality of n-tuples, each of the plurality of n-tuples including n>1 text strings, a computer-implemented method comprising: (1) receiving a plurality of characters of text from a user as the user is typing the text; (2) after the user types each character in the received text, determining whether the characters typed so far match any of the n text strings in a first one of the plurality of n-tuples; and (3) if it is determined that the characters typed so far match any of the n text strings in the first tuple, indicating to the user that a match has been found.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein n=2, and wherein each of the plurality of n-tuples includes first text representing a stock ticker symbol and second text representing a company name corresponding to the stock ticker symbol.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein (2) comprises determining whether the characters typed so far match leading text in any of the n text strings in the first one of the plurality of n-tuples.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein (3) comprises displaying to the user the n text strings in the first one of the plurality of n-tuples.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein (3) further comprises visually emphasizing a subset of text in at least one of the n text strings, wherein the subset of text match the characters typed so far by the user.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein (2) comprises determining whether the characters typed so far match any of the n text strings in any of the plurality of n-tuples, and wherein (3) comprises indicating to the user that at least one match has been found if it is determined that the characters typed so far match any of the n text strings in any of the plurality of n-tuples.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein (3) comprises displaying to the user the n text strings of the matching ones of the plurality of n-tuples.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein (2) comprises determining that the characters typed so far match a first one of the n text strings in the first one of the plurality of n-tuples, and that the characters typed so far do not match a second one of the n text strings in the first one of the plurality of n-tuples.
 9. The method of claim 1, further comprising: (4) receiving input from the user selecting one of the n-tuples; and (5) using text from the selected one of the n-tuples to complete input of the text to the system.
 10. The method of claim 9, wherein (5) comprises replacing the characters typed so far by the user with text from the selected one of the n-tuples.
 11. The method of claim 9, wherein (5) comprises appending text from the selected one of the n-tuples to the characters typed so far by the user. 